Consultant studies Daytona 500 attendees

Sunday

Feb 24, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Those of you of the Landed Gentry and Country Comfort persuasion, we say welcome.

CLAYTON PARKWORD ON THE STREET

Those of you of the Landed Gentry and Country Comfort persuasion, we say welcome. A recent study by a national tourism marketing consultant found that you account for the largest percentage of visitors in town this week to attend the Daytona 500.

According to the Volusia County-funded $100,000 study, 16.7 percent of Daytona 500 attendees hail from a social group identified in consultant Daniel Fenton's report as Landed Gentry — while 14.6 percent are from a group he identified as Country Comfort.

Those terms were coined by Claritas Inc., a market segmentation research company that's now part of the Nielsen Companies, the folks best known for tracking television viewer ratings.

According to Fenton's report, Landed Gentry “consists of wealthy Americans who migrated to the smaller boom towns beyond the nation's beltways.” They also have a median household income of $82,323 a year, meaning half earn more and half earn less.

Country Comfort folks, on the other hand, have a median household income of $55,843 and are predominantly “Caucasian upper-middle-class homeowners,” according to the Carmel Valley, Calif.-based consultant who is with a firm called Strategic Advisory Group.

“In their placid towns and scenic bedroom communities,” Fenton wrote, “these Americans . . . enjoy comfortable upscale lifestyles, exhibiting high indices for barbecuing, bar-hopping and playing golf along with home-based activities such as gardening, woodworking and crafts. Reflecting their rural, family environment, they prefer trucks, SUVs and minivans to cars.”

HOW HE DID IT

Fenton, in a telephone interview, said that for his findings regarding Daytona 500 visitors, he surveyed more than 20 hotels in the Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach areas to obtain the street names and ZIP codes — but not personal information — of their guests during the week of the big race.

He then ran that data through a “PRIZM analysis” — a market segmentation research method developed by Claritas.

His findings, he believes, could pay off for local tourism officials by allowing them to tailor their marketing messages to more effectively convince Daytona 500 visitors to consider making additional vacation trips here at other times of the year.

NASCAR'S VIEW

NASCAR spokesman Nick Kelly said his company doesn't have demographic information specifically about Daytona 500 attendees, but offered some stats regarding NASCAR fans in general: the vast majority are middle class, with 54 percent earning more than $50,000 a year. Two out of five have children under the age of 18. One out of five is “multicultural,” meaning nonwhite minorities, he said.

“There's a perception that NASCAR only appeals to fans in the Southeast, but that's not true,” he added.

While 41 percent are from the South, Kelley noted that 25 percent are from the Midwest, 19 percent are from the West and 15 percent are from the Northeast.